Cult experts predict more doomsday acts as millennium nears

WASHINGTON (CNN) -- Across the country, millions of people
are asking how a simple comet sighting could lead 39 people
in an exclusive neighborhood to kill themselves.

But some experts say they understand how the comet could lead
to a mass suicide, and they're seeing the same patterns
elsewhere.

The arrival of the brightest comet of the century and the
impending turn of the millennium have spawned warnings that
the world is ending. Cults are heeding the call.

Members of the Heaven's Gate cult near San Diego believed
Comet Hale-Bopp shielded a spaceship, which would transport
their liberated spirits to heaven.

A newsletter on the Web called "Earth Change Predictions"
tells readers in its January 1997 issue that "A Mighty
Earthquake Will Split North America In Two" and "The Earth's
Rotation Is Predicted To Reverse In 2 Years."

Doomsday cult leader Shoko Asahara, the leader of the Aum
Shinri Kyo cult in Japan, convinced thousands of followers
that major disasters would occur in the final years of this
millennium. He is on trial for masterminding a sarin gas
attack on a Japanese subway that killed 11 people.

Their beliefs and actions, although extreme, are not uncommon
behavior for the human race as a whole; similar reactions
have been repeated on the brink of every major turn of the
calendar on record.

"As you change from one millennium to the other, you feel
that something very fundamental is changing," said
psychologist Michael Apter, a professor at Georgetown
University. "That is not a rational belief. It's even, if
you want, an irrational belief, but it's very much a part of
our psychology."

An upcoming exhibit at the American Visionary Art Museum in
Baltimore entitled "The End is Near" is a collection of works
exploring turn-of-the-millennium and apocalyptic prophecies
from "self-taught visionaries."

Rebecca Alban Hoffberger, museum president and founder, says
the art touches on everything from doves of peace and
rainbows -- promising a new, happier world -- to nuclear
bombs exploding, warheads and tanks.

And comets appear, again and again, at the museum and in the
collection, along with spaceships, serpents and dire
prophecies of judgment and destruction.

Philosophers and theologians say history advises to expect
the unexpected.

"Whenever there is the end of a millennium, the anxieties of
the age are drawn into very sharp focus, and this can trigger
apocalyptic fervor," said Chris Leighton, executive director
of the Institute of Christian and Jewish Studies.

Apter agreed. "I would guess we're going to see more and
more of this, judging by what happened in the first
millennium. ... There will be people who will do bizarre and
crazy things."